Okay, I'll admit the title is a bit dramatic… But it's accurate. I absolutely loved my last camera and couldn't imagine parting with. I finally decided to take the plunge and I couldn’t be happier with my
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS.
Why I Upgraded
My
Canon Powershot Elph SD 600 served me well for the last two years. The camera always provided great picture quality and plenty of features to keep me busy. I enjoy taking pictures, which compliments one of my other hobbies; scrapbooking.
My decision to upgrade came about at a Star Trek Convention. I was trying to take a picture of an actor (Patrick Stewart) on stage from the sixth row. Shooting with a flash resulted in a dark picture. Shooting without a flash produced a blurry picture. I didn’t have a tripod with me and wouldn’t have had room for one even if I had remembered it. I managed to get a few decent shots and went home planning to look into cameras with image stabilization.
I had been so happy with my Elph that I knew I wanted to stay within that line. The Canon Elphs feature Canon’s Digic processors, which are excellent processors. Since the processor plays an important role in image quality, it was top priority for me. I looked into several cameras and decided to purchase the
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS. This camera was an upgrade in several respects. It had the newer generation Digic processor, Digic III. It also offered a 2 megapixel upgrade and the image stabilization. It was a downgrade in speed, shooting at only 1.3 frames per second instead of my SD600’s 2.3 frames per second. With a digital SLR purchase planned in the near future, however, I decided it wasn’t an issue for me.
Picture Quality
The picture quality on my
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS can only be described as excellent. I was shocked when side-by-side pictures, taken on the day I received it, revealed this new camera blew my SD600 out of the water. The Digic III processor seems to be a huge improvement in terms of processing color. The colors are much more vibrant, but also extremely accurate. The pictures are consistently sharp and properly exposed. The camera handles every condition well (at least all the ones I have used it in thus far). My low-light images were low in noise. I had a no incidence of red-eye. The auto-focus worked well in every situation.
With 8 megapixels, the resolution gives me the ability to zoom in more than I needed to. I was able to zoom so close into a picture of my engagement ring that I could see fabric fibers stuck in a prong that were not visible to the naked eye. I’m not hairy at all, yet the picture made me look like a chimpanzee, with sharp black hairs that were really peach fuzz to my eyes. The resolution is more than enough for my printing needs, allowing for prints up to poster size (which will certainly not be necessary for the hairy finger picture!)
I’ll elaborate more about the image quality as I discuss the various features of the camera.
Physical Attributes
This camera is quite compact, making it ideal for on-the-go shutterbugs. It fits easily into my purse or into a jacket pocket. I keep it with me at all times, allowing me to snap pictures whenever the need arises or the mood strikes me. The camera is a little larger than a standard deck of playing cards. It measures 3.42 inches wide by 2.16 inches in height by 0.87 inches deep. It is slightly larger than my Canon SD 600 was, but not a significant difference. The camera is also very light, weighing only 4.41 ounces.
The camera has a very sleek design. It has a box-like shape that’s very comfortable to hold. The buttons are intuitive and well placed. The layout is very similar to that on my previous Elph. The power button and shutter button are on the top of the camera. A switch that surrounds the shutter button controls the zoom. Most of the cameras controls are on the back of the camera. A switch on the top-right of the back of the camera toggles between camera, video, and viewing modes. A circular-shaped button and several surrounding buttons give you control of the various settings, modes, and menus. All of the buttons were large enough to accommodate both my tiny fingers and my fiance’s fingers comfortably.
The flash and lens are located on the face of the camera. The lens protrudes about an inch and a half from the front of the camera when active and retracts until flush with the camera when powered off or reviewing pictures for an extended period of time.
A 2.5” LCD screen has a place on the back of the camera. I found the screen to be sufficiently large. It is very high quality, with an excellent viewing angle. The screen is very clear and gives an accurate preview of what your pictures will look like on the computer. The screen can be disabled by an adjacent button to preserve battery life. A small viewfinder is located above the screen, allowing the user to view real-time images of what is being captured. I prefer to use this feature in bright sunlight, though I did not notice a problem with viewing the screen in any condition I have used the camera in. I was very impressed since I did encounter a few instances when I couldn’t effectively utilize my SD600’s screen. The screen was prone to fingerprints. I found myself using my lens cleaning cloth on it often.
The camera is offered in several colors. I purchased the bohemian brown model of the camera, which is a rich brown color. It is also sold in rhythm & blue, swing silver, pink melody, and golden tone. The color is limited to the face and back of the camera, as the width of the camera is black.
Use and Operation
If you have ever owned a Canon Elph camera, there will be no learning curve. This camera operates exactly like its predecessors. The controls are quite intuitive and the menus are simple to operate. The camera’s basic functions (taking pictures in auto mode, reviewing pictures, and shooting video) will be very easy for anyone to pick up. The more advanced options may take a little while for new users to familiarize themselves with. The manual is very detailed in explaining every function, providing more than sufficient information for even the most tech-allergic user. My father, whose idea of shutting off a computer is unplugging it, owns an Elph and can use almost every feature.
Lens and Zoom
The
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS provides a great quality lens. The camera has a 3x optical zoom, which is average for most point and shoot cameras. I would have liked a little more zoom but it works for most of my needs. The image stabilization compensates for the natural unsteadiness in your hand, which can often be a problem when using a zoom. There was a noticeable improvement in the sharpness of the pictures I took fully zoomed with this camera over my SD600, which also boasts a 3x optical zoom.
This camera also provides a 4x digital zoom, which I recommend turning off in the main menu. Digital zooms are not actual zooms. They digitally stretch the image, lowering the quality and making them grainy. Keeping this feature off ensures that you won’t accidentally use it and unknowingly lower your picture quality.
Flash
The flash on this camera has been strong enough for my uses but not so powerful that it washes out the image or sucks the life out of it. I have yet to take one picture with red-eye in it. From what I can tell, the placement looks similar to that of the previous Elph models, yet I have noticed a vast improvement in performance. The flash can reach up to 11 feet with a 10 second or less recycling time. I would say it’s significantly less than that. Several flash modes are available: auto, auto red-eye correction, red-eye reduction, flash off, flash on, FE lock, and slow synchro.
I felt “auto” did a good job of gauging when the flash was necessary. The only pictures I took when it went off without being needed were close-ups of a ring. Canon does offer an external flash for the camera, but I cannot imagine needing it.
Lag
I have noticed no lag time between pressing the shutter button and the picture being taken. The flash fires rapidly and it shoots faster than my previous camera.
Features and Settings
The camera offers several shooting modes for use in various situations:
Auto: The default setting that is most often used by most users, auto on my
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS does a great job of compensating for most conditions. This setting does favor the flash in low light conditions. The pictures I took in this mode were excellent, for the most part. It does moderately well indoors and actually manages to capture “moods,” rather than sucking the life out of images in a futile attempt to compensate for low light situations. The macro setting (denoted by a flower on one of the buttons) is available in this mode and functions quite well. I was able to take outstanding close-ups of various fabric textures and jewelry. The camera allows you to zoom in while reviewing pictures and doing so allowed me to gauge how well the images were turning out. Doing so revealed several clothing fibers that were stuck in the prong of my engagement ring, invisible to the naked eye. A picture taken the following day after a trip to the jewelry store revealed that a cleaning had been effective in removing the fibers.
Camera M: This manual mode allows the user to alter settings such as white balance and colors. I found this mode to be fun to play around with, but not as useful as the other settings when taking pictures. I fooled around with this mode while photographing a sunset at the pier in a local park. Altering various setting produced some dramatically different and beautiful results, but in most other situations, I found the camera’s pre-set modes to be more than sufficient for my needs. The manual mode does not allow manual focusing, which gave me less control than I would have liked, but it certainly wasn’t a problem for a point-and-shoot camera.
Portrait: As it’s moniker would suggest, this mode is for pictures of people (still or posing). It employs the red-eye flash settings in taking pictures. I found it do a great job for portraits within 4-10 ft. For pictures farther away than that, I found the indoor mode to be more useful. The pictures that I did take using this mode were properly exposed, with no red eye.
Night Snapshot: Another self-explanatory setting, this mode is best for images taken at night. Portraits taken at night with this mode were well lit and sharp. I didn’t notice a high incidence of noise as I had expected. The default flash setting on this mode has the flash going off, but when turned off, I found this setting to be helpful with the use of the camera’s continuous shot mode. The shutter speed seems to be set high, to compensate for the flash. When the flash was off, day or night, the shutter speed helped me get some great action shots when I toggled the continuous shot setting.
Color Accent: A mode I use purely for entertainment value, color accent allows the user to choose a color from a sample in your image to be “accented.” All other colors are muted and the images taken appear black and white, with the exception of that color. I took some fun, dramatic pictures with this, but I couldn’t find a real use for it. I’m really not keen on the idea of allowing the camera to throw out color information for portions of the picture. Something like this is best done in an editing program where the original image can be saved and then played around with.
Color Swap: Like the preceding mode, color swap is another “fun” mode. This mode allows you to choose a color and “swap” it with another one. This one has a few more practical uses, perhaps useful in determining what a new paint color will look like in a room. The problem is, this mode only picks up on exact shades so it is most useful in well-lit situations. A dark room for instance, with shadowy areas on the walls, will be interpreted as different colors to the camera and only a few areas will be “swapped.”
Digital Macro: This is another close-up mode, which I haven’t used much.
Stitch Assist: Stitch assist allows the user to “stitch” images together to create a panoramic picture. This is much easier to use than one might anticipate and produced some interesting images of the horizon from the beach.
A number of scene modes are also offered to further your camera’s ability to adapt to many picture-taking scenarios. Though I described the excellent auto mode above, you’ll get better results with other presets in some situations:
Foliage: This mode seems to make colors more vivid and gives images a romantic glow. Though fall is a long way off, and the summer is still some time away, I didn’t have too much foliage to shoot. This mode did result in some beautiful sprouting flower pictures, however, and some interesting shots of some fake leaves I’m considering using in my wedding decor.
Snow: The snow setting helps ensure that the snow will be the image’s whitest white, allowing the user to capture beautiful winter scenes. With no snow on the ground (and hopefully no more until next year), I have not yet been able to test this mode. I’ll update this as soon as I do.
Beach: The beach mode compensates for bright sunlight, which I found helpful not only in a few beach pictures on my last trip to the park but with any outdoor pictures in the sun. The images I took in this mode did not look overexposed and allowed me to capture accurate coloring.
Sunset: Sunset mode, as the name hints, is for taking pictures of sunsets. I was able to get beautiful sunset pictures in this mode, and similar images in foliage mode. My guess would be that both employ the camera’s vivid color mode as well as adjusting some other settings.
Fireworks: Dedicated to photographing fireworks, this mode uses long shutter speeds to capture dramatic pictures of fireworks. This mode is difficult to use without a tripod, as it picks up the motions in your hand and the ensuing blur. I believe when used correctly, this mode will be very effective in performing its job. I was able to steady my hand on a railing and use this mode to take pictures of a chiminea engulfed in flames at a barbeque (my firefighter cousin was in charge of the mini-inferno). The photos turned out quite dramatic and amusing.
Aquarium: I was surprised to see this mode, but found it to be a great idea. Aquarium mode reduces the amount of reflection caught from glass and makes colors more vivid, as would be necessary when taking pictures at an aquarium. My fiance and I plan to visit the New York Aquarium soon for a real test run, but in the meantime, I took photos of our large fish tank at work. When I brought the pictures home, my fiance’s response was, “You went to the aquarium without me?" I guess it’s safe to say this mode works!
Underwater: This camera is NOT waterproof. Underwater mode if to be used in conjunction with the camera’s waterproof housing. I have not picked it up yet, though I am considering it for our honeymoon to St. Lucia. The housing is a bit on the expensive side ($200), so we’ll have to see.
Indoor: Indoor mode, intended for indoor pictures, is one of my more frequently used modes. So far, the indoor images have been great; all of the images have been sharp and the colors have been vibrant. I believe the image stabilization plays a big role in keeping the images sharp. I did get red-eye once or twice in this mode, but the problem was corrected when I re-shot the same image in portrait mode.
Kids & Pets: Kids & Pets is great for capturing things that are moving. This mode uses fast shutter speeds and produced some great action shots for me. I was able to take some excellent images of my two dogs playing and the pigeons landing during “toss” (a training run). This mode did produce some blurry images once in a while, which was fixed when I shot the images with night portrait mode. The colors are more vibrant in this mode, however.
Other Settings:
The
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS offers a number of color options; vivid, vivid blue, vivid green, vivid red, neutral, sepia, black & white, positive film, lighter skin tones, darker skin tone, and custom. During the times when I manually set the colors, I mainly used the vivid settings. Sepia, black & white, and neutral all worked well, but I’m not so comfortable with doing these kinds of edits in camera. I’d rather shoot all of the images in color and edit them at will on my computer. This allows me to save the color image for future use and have the altered copy.
The camera also offers multiple ISO settings. These include auto, high ISO auto, ISO 80, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, and ISO 1600. Most of the time I used the auto-setting, which produced great images with very low noise in most cases. ISO 800 and 1600 both produced moderate noise, though not as noticeable as some other cameras I dealt with. Most of the noise appeared in the form of varying shades in the background. I’ve worked with some cameras that pick up what looks like brightly colored confetti on high ISOs. That was not the case with this camera.
White balance options on this camera include auto, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, fluorescent H, and custom. I took advantage of the auto setting most often, which I felt did a good job of producing appropriately balanced images. Tungsten, cloudy, and daylight were a lot of fun to play with while I was taking images on the beach and at sunset. I didn’t use the two fluorescent settings much. I found the custom setting to be too close to the auto setting for me to use it.
The
SD1100IS offers a self timer, which can be set to 2 seconds, 10 seconds, or a custom setting. Audible warnings alert you to when this mode is activated, giving you time to jump into the picture. The same button, which controls the self timer, can toggle the continuous shooting mode which shoots at 1.3 frames per second. The continuous shot mode is slower than my SD600, which is disappointing but still very good. I use this mode a lot when shooting the dogs playing and I still get a rapid succession of photos. There was a larger gap between photos, but it did cut down on the pictures I throw out. Often when I’m dealing with a faster camera, the intermediate pictures in a set get thrown out because there’s not much of a difference between them. Now I use all of the images in the succession when I scrapbook.
The maximum aperture of this camera is f/2.8(W)-f/4.9(T). The shutter speed ranges from 15 seconds to 1/1500 second.
Video
Like most point-and-shoot digital cameras, the
SD1100IS offers a video mode. This shoots at up to 30 frames per second. I found the video quality to be good for a digital camera and on par with other Elphs I’ve shot with. The video is shot with audio, which is good quality but not very loud during playback on the camera. I can hear it much better once the video is transferred to my computer.
Battery Life
This camera takes a proprietary lithium-ion rechargeable battery; the NB4L. The benefit to this type of battery is that it lasts significantly longer than AA alkalines or lithiums. I have been consistently able to shoot over 350 images on one battery charge, even while reviewing the images repeatedly (what can I say? It’s my new toy…). The first fully charged battery I used in the camera lasted me over a month's worth of shooting, despite my review-happy ways.
The down side to this type of battery is that you always need one charged on hand. If your battery dies and you have no time to charge it before an event, you can’t run to a pharmacy or grocery store and pick up a pack of Energizers. I always recommend keeping an extra, charged, on hand as a backup. I actually keep three charged spares on hand (I know, I’m crazy).
The battery is included with the camera. Spares are available from Canon for $55.00. I purchased three
Digipower CN4Ls (their NB4L equivalent) for $39.99 and they last longer than the factory battery. Each battery takes a little over an hour to charge from full discharge. The battery compartment is located at the bottom of the camera and is easy to install and remove.
Memory
The
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS uses Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. Canon has been consistently using these cards in their cameras for the last few years along with Nikon, Kodak, HP, and Casio. For this reason, and the fact that my Dell Laptop has an SD slot, I prefer this type of memory.
I use high speed memory in all of my cameras, allowing me to take full advantage of the camera’s continuous shot speeds. High speed cards often boast the ability to conserve battery life because of faster saving times. Previously, I was using a
San Disk Ultra II 2 GB SD Memory Card which was more than sufficient for my needs. Somehow I still felt the need to purchase two new 2 GB high speed SD memory cards. I purchased
San Disk Extreme III 2 GB SD Memory Cards and they’ve performed very well. I popped them into my SD600 before selling it and noticed increased performance in that camera as well.
Storage capacity varies based on the resolution and compression of the image. The higher the resolution, the higher the image quality is. Compression is making the files smaller to conserve space. Low compression results in less loss of quality in the images. The camera offers six resolution settings and three compression settings for still photos. I always recommend and keep my cameras set to the highest resolution and the lowest compression for the best quality images. At these settings, my 2 GB holds 544 images. This card alone has sufficient capacity for my needs, though I keep two extras on hand in case. There are four video-shooting options to choose from. The 2 GB card holds over 12 minutes of video at the highest quality video setting.
Durability
Though I won’t test the camera’s durability first hand, it feels moderately durable. It is lighter than my SD 600, but has a metal case and feels like it would survive being tossed around. Canon makes a case to fit the camera exactly;
the PSC-1000. I purchased one to protect my camera from any scratches. The case is form-fitting and adds negligible mass and weight to the camera, so it still fits easily into a purse.
What’s In The Box?
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS Digital Camera
Lithium-Ion Battery NB-4L
Battery Charger
32 MB SD Memory Card
Wrist Strap
CD-ROM
USB Cable
AV Cable
A one-year limited warranty is also included, though I purchased the two-year extended service plan from Dell.
Connecting It
Connecting the camera to my computer was easy. Simply plug the USB cable in and turn the camera on. The software provided is easy to use, but I preferred to let Windows install its own driver and use my own editing software. Rather than connect the camera, I usually insert my memory card into my laptop or printer to transfer pictures. This also preserves the battery, since the camera need not be powered while pictures are being transferred.
Price and Availability
The regular retail price of the
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS is $249.99. I was able to get the camera for $212.49, during a special promotion
Dell was running. Dell is advertising the camera as being available exclusive to their site, but it appears to be available on other sites as well. The camera was an excellent value for the price I paid.
Other Models Considered
There were several other models that I considered before making my purchase. For those whom may be considering the same models, I thought I’d offer some perspective into my decision. All of the cameras I considered were Canon models with their Digic III image processor and image stabilization.
Having personal experience with the
Canon Powershot Elph SD950IS, it was one of the models I strongly considered. My father owns the SD950IS and it’s a great camera. This camera offers 12 megapixels (2 more than the SD1100IS), 3.7X zoom (.7 more than the SD1100IS), and .2 frames per second more continuous shot mode for $110 more.
The Canon Powershot Elph SD870IS was another model I considered. This model offers a larger screen (3.0”) and 1X higher optical zoom for $130 more. The camera offers no increase in speed and no optical viewfinder, which is a deal-breaker for me. I wouldn’t pay more money for a camera without one and only a small bump in zoom.
The last model I considered is the Canon Powershot Elph SD850IS. This model was only $70 more and offered .8X more optical zoom.
There were several reasons I chose the
Canon SD1100IS over all of the aforementioned models. One was a simple matter of price. It wasn’t worth $70-$130 jump in price for such small improvements. The SD950IS was the runner up, but the speed difference and slightly extra zoom was not enough to sway me. The other two had even less to offer for the price difference. The
SD1100IS was the best value for the money. All three models followed the Elph’s new contoured design, while the
Canon SD1100IS has the more boxy design which I both prefer aesthetically and functionally. It’s easier for me to hold. I also liked that the
SD1100IS takes the same battery as my last camera (NB-4L as opposed to the NB-5L), allowing me to continue to use the same spares rather than purchasing new ones. I thought the choice of color was a nice feature as well. It makes it easier to identify my camera from others and gives it a little more personality. This seems to be the only Canon camera that is offered in several choices (other than the usual silver and black).
Recommendation
The
Canon Powershot Elph SD1100IS is an excellent camera for any point-and-shoot user. This compact camera produces outstanding images with tons of features. This camera works well for those of us who love taking pictures anywhere and everywhere and even as a smaller companion for when more experienced photographers don’t have the energy to lug around a digital SLR.
